Charlotte’s Story

Entering high school, I was selected for one out of the two "S classes". The title of these classes had the stigma of being the smartest classes in the year. Over time, I realised being in one of these classes put nothing but pressure on me. I was obviously smart enough to be in this class, but I never felt quite as good as the others around me.

As well as endless work, and tests and exams being thrown at you in every subject and class you sat down in, you were constantly being thrown assignments that were to be done at home with such a short period of time until their due date.

I then started to fall behind, not only with my grades but with my attendance. I just couldn't get myself to go to school some days. I would have packed my bag the night before with all of my books, but when I got up to get ready in the morning, the feeling of severe sickness and anxiety was just too much. Whenever I didn't turn up at school, which was sometimes consecutive days, I would constantly receive pressuring messages and phone calls from my group of friends who wanted me to be at school, this actually got to me. As well as this, I had issues at home.

It wasn't long before the home school liaison officer turned up at my home to talk to my Mum about me not attending school, which was such a scare for me and just made my anxiety worse.

My Mum and I began to think the problem could have been the school that I was at, so my Mum then moved me to another high school to begin fresh in Year 10. But the feeling continued for me, nothing changed, I lasted 4 days at that school before dropping out completely and giving up.

I decided to help my Mum and take on the issues we had at home, becoming a full time carer with her to look after my father figure, my Pop, who was only getting worse with dementia.

At this point I didn't care about education, I thought to myself my mental health comes first before anything. Finally realising I needed help, I ended up seeing a psychologist and was diagnosed with anxiety and depression, and with what who would've thought it was an actual thing, I was also diagnosed with "school phobia".

Slowly on the mend, my Mum saw an ad in the paper for an alternative school. As soon as she mentioned it to me I freaked out, just the thought of any school frightened me, but fortunately she forced me into at least going to check it out.

So I went to an alternative school where half of the staff, including the people in charge, were Indigenous. This school worked for me because everyone was on the same level with how they felt about schooling, therefore it was judgment free and friendly. It also worked for me in the way that it focused more on attendance, just to motivate yourself to get up out of bed and do something and to be a part of something, rather than the pressure you would have each day of attending a mainstream school. There was never an overload of learning and the classes were never anything too intense, which is what I think is all that's needed. To make this school even more special, it was Indigenous friendly. This was my happy place.